(Don't) Fear The Reaper: A Dark Knight Guide

Ok, well I would like to see your drk in action please, maybe we can get some kinda info on screen shots or video. I would like to see your ws set as well. Maybe you, Bloodlusty and I can all run a few parses and see what we have with our set ups. Would be kinda nice to get a concrete idea in similar situations posted up on here.

I still know my gear isn't top of the line HQ gear, but I know it holds up pretty damn well. Maybe we can figure out some ideal gear sets and have them for high, top and God tier sets for everyone to aim for.


Fyi, variable outcome is based off human error, gear choices, non-ideal situations (which happen often) and just all around ***luck some days.

Was also considering just lvling war since it I am so close to having the weapon/gear for it anyway, would be interesting to see difference between war and drk on a few people. Same person playing both jobs gives us a closer idea of the difference in parse because that one person has the same level of gear and closer level of skill/aggressiveness vs trying to match two completely different people on different jobs.

I originally called it that way but I had people question what I meant, figured saying 3hit+ws or 4hit+ws would make it more clear.

Just saying it is not as far behind as people think. Apoc is one of those very powerful and under-rated things, kinda like putting a 2100 jp rdm and a idris geo together. (Good God the power of that is broken)

Just to give people an idea of that kind of WSC deficit we're talking about.

Rag = 304 DMG
Apoc = 362 DMG
Liberator = 330 DMG

I have 114 base STR on DRK. In my resolution set, standing outside of MH without Ionis, Hasso, food or any other buff I have in Resolution set.

114 +261 STR

At 85% that comes to +318.75 (318) WSC.

Assuming the target has ~200 VIT, you get ~44 fSTR.

304 + 318 + 44 = 666 WDMG.

Want to see how small 20% is? Before fSTR Lib is 292 WDMG short, to get that it would need a combined 1241 STR / INT score, your not getting that even in abyssea. 20% wasn't a big deal back when WS's usually had 10~50% WSC's and SAM's were the only ones running around with big WSC values on YGK. Now that SE removed the Level Alpha and we're rocking 80~85% WSC high fTP WS's, stat boosting has become extremely important. The problem gets exasperated once you enter Escha where we can get 60~66 more of each stat.

Anyone who would be confused by hasn't been around a very long time. The original x-hit craziness started with Hagun SAM's rocking 6-hit builds. YGK are all 1-hit WS's and so SAM's had to factor in the Store TP on the WS itself as the first hit in order to get the exact amount needed. This was important because Store TP and Haste weren't nearly as common and there was big trade offs, hence the advent of /DRG and using the haste from earring to substitute out hands for Store TP on Hachimen.

You can see my DRK resolution set right here, it's the exact same as WAR, except different JSE mantle.

ItemSet 342760

Lots of STR, Multi-Attack, Accuracy, Attack, DEX and Store TP. It's actually a bit heavy on Store TP so I've been thinking about changing out Store TP from my TP build into more Multi-Attack.

This is what I mean by Resolution being exploitable. There exists gear in the game that does crazy ***to it's damage potential but that gear is completely lacking INT, MND and VIT. Instead those WS's would have to use different gear that has far less of those respective stats. You just keep throwing more STR on top of it and it's damage skyrockets. The STR enhances both the base DMG and the fSTR, effectively doubling the gears potency.

... wrong :)

Ok ran some tests last night with trusts



With using my liberator into Ragnarok I ended up with a total of 412 STR. Still using petrov / Rajas and standard argosy for ws build. Going to gear this and keep trying, really need to test in a full zerg situation

Saeval, now i'm on asura I wouldn't mind joining a zerg set up of yours to test in detail. Thanks

I had never even counted on something like Absorb-STR or Boost-STR. And those numbers are on PLD monsters that melee's done do well against anyway. I'm in the process of adding new gear into my DRK sets and it brought up a question. How much of the DRK JSE is still used for stuff like Absorb / Drain?

No you didn't, you have a Geo mule using Blaze of Glory/Fury/Frailty. That's important to note because we all know the difference between having a Geo and not having one is massive. That in no way invalidates what you are doing since you'll always have a Geo(probably), it's just important to note for someone watching who DOESN'T realize this is Geo assisted.

Also, some people might argue that you're holding TP until 3k so your lower WS frequency is a thing. It isn't really though. I don't remember who it was, but someone did testing on how strong of an effect TP has on Resolution, and how it was more or less irrelevant if you are holding TP when using it, because the damage scales so well that it's basically the same either way. On WAR with Warcry it's a bit of a different story, but without Warcry it holds true.

The only other thing I would say is that Soul Eater and Scarlet Delirium are very valuable tools for zerging on DRK. Soul Eater+Blood Weapon will give you results close to what is possible with Mighty Strikes on WAR, it's just a lot more dangerous. If you manage to take a good hit with Scarlet Delirium for half your health, that will boost your damage by 25%. It's just that Scarlet Delirium is so goddamn hard to use, and also dangerous >.>

I don't really understand the arguments here though. The weapons are used for different things. Resolution has very high damage potential in high buff situations where you are not concerned with skillchains, while Scythe has greater utility and skillchain options.

However, if SE would stop being a bunch of *** and just let other jobs Lionheart... Well, no contest.

Without gorget/belt 3000 TP is 0.46875 fTP higher than 3x 1000 TP weapon skills.

With gorget/belt 3x 1000 TP is 1.53125 fTP higher than a single 3000 TP weapon skill.

Assuming BGWiki's fTP values are correct. And assuming you're weapon skilling at exactly 1000 TP. Any overflow because of multi-hit increases the value of the 1000 TP weapon skills.

This is all I said but other posters got extremely butt hurt that a Ragnarok Resolution spam would deal more damage then Scythe's.


This was because someone kept pointing out "30K Insurgencies!" which is Insurgency at 3000TP with Liberator, typically used at start to activate AM3. They then kept insisting Resolution on DRK doesn't get 30K.

Just finished screwing around with Apex Crawlers. My friend loaned me their shitty 860 skill GEO mule who did Fury + Frailty, no BoG or other boost. Trusts in every other spot including KingOfHearts and Qualtada. Just did a 45497 Resolution at 3000TP, though most 3000TP Resolutions were 35~39K with 1000TP being around 18K. Now lets add real buffs with real players and see where we can get.

:Edit:

Just did a 48K Resolution at 3000TP but that was with Soul Eater and 4800HP.

Found what I was talking about. It was Byrth.


He was talking about WAR here, but considering stylistically the two jobs are the same when not factoring Warcry, the same should hold true for DRK. Bryth isn't known for not knowing his ***(With the exception of Endark adding acc via job points >.>), so I'm going to assume he knows what he is talking about.

There is a very slight DPS loss from WS due to Moonshade and Fotia pushing Reso's fTP up, that DPS loss is usually removed when the WS delay is factored in.

431 Weapon at 20% Delay is 86.2 delay or 1.43 seconds per attack round. Weapon Skills add 2 seconds. The more multi-attack and lower x-hit the more prevalent this becomes. In a typical 5-hit your attack rounds look something like this

2s WS +1.43 x 3 + DA

4.29 Seconds spent attacking, 2.0 seconds spent waiting after WS for a time loss of 0.57 seconds out of 6.29 seconds or 9%. But saving for 2000TP you get

2s WS +1.43 x 6 + 2DA

8.58 Seconds spent attacking, 2.0 seconds spent waiting with a time loss of 0.57s out of 10.58 or 5.3%.

This is the wall that 4/5 hit builds run into. They end up wasting more and more time just sitting there waiting for their attack round to start up again.

If there is linear scaling then the 2000TP WS ends up happening a a little faster then 2 x 1000TP for slightly higher damage. Very few WS's have that kind of scaling, so it's usually a DPS loss to hold but Resolution is one of the situations where it kinda washes out. Savagery Warcry alters this significantly though as that 700Tp Bonus lets you fire off 1950TP Resolutions at 1000TP.

Relic hands for drains and absorbs is my personal preference. Empyrean legs for when nethervoid is up.

Sorry - I know my knowledge is limited, but this debate is actually counterproductive to the actual question at hand. For simplicity's sake, I'll requote it:


I'm not trying to be a nudge here, but I'm just trying to be objective. Saevel, how can you claim that Scythe WSs suck but you don't have a legendary scythe to verify? (I don't have on either, but I'm listening intently to see what's being discussed). The question that was asked was which one to AG, and I think an argument was made that both could be AG'ed and see amazing numbers, arguably Apoc putting up similar numbers in rare circumstances. And then the other side is Rag wins all the time, but we're purposely missing the utility part of the discussion and derailing it into a "which ws is better" debate. Not needed.

I think both of your points are well and good, but its been over complicated at this point. Can we just agree that both are worth AGing?

I don't mean to completely discredit observational knowledge, but the argument that you can't judge item X without owning it has traditionally been one of the poorest arguments in FFXI.

You don't have to have a legendary weapon to be able to do math. Whether you have the weapon or not makes no difference.

Edit: beat to the punch

edit2: If you have been watching "intently" you would also know that one of the persons in this argument apparently cant use spreadsheets, parses fights w/o acknowledging SC dmg, and eyes the ***out of stuff....while having a legendary weapon. The other side of the argument uses math, knows formulas and tends to have a general understanding of the game mechanics. However, he comes off as an *** when expressing his views and information.

To Azagarth (or whatever your name is) MAKE WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT. It's your char to do what you want with.

Missed the point entirely. I was asked if resolution could do higher on DRK with buffs. The whole point of the video was to see how high you could (potentially) go. The argument was based around liberator dealing higher insurgencys then resolutions which under normal conditions is true. But a high buff zerg resolution will trump it

You don't need to own the weapon to math out a rough ws number as long as info on bg wiki is correct.

I'm not taking sides, but to answer the original question "which one to AG", it's probably more reliable to hear opinion from someone at least used both weapon significant amount of time and parse a lot.... simply because his question isn't "which ws can put out highest ws number with X and Y buffs on Z targets". The OPs question didn't set a specific scenario, he only asked which to AG first.

Or just parse with each other to find out.

Afaina said what I meant basically. Ok not saying you cannot detail the specifics I'd weapons you have and don't, but the videos that were posted were pretty cool and showed what could be done with a weapon. It's kind of one sighted, in my opinion, to only highlight one weapon to the exclusion of others. Some of us like doing things and having irons on drk. It's not a monarchy in weapons for drk. Each has a great deal of usefulness. I have been convinced towards making other weapons because of this thread.

That's all

First off, I need to apologize for being in the wrong and trying to debate without having done test myself or any supporting evidence. I made a very noob like move and just assumed.



The problem was I was contesting it because I failed to see reso putting out enough dmg to the point of saying "Reso/Rag" only, my original declaration was that unless drk is rocking 40k reso over and over there is no point in saying "Rag/Reso only"

As Bloodlusty pointed I stated there was no evidence to point out 30k reso spams on drk, which I was clearly wrong, Saevel is doing it, Bloodlusty made a video to prove it, and I went out myself and did it this morning when I got up.

My biggest concern was and still is lies within spamming of reso solo does not give sc and in group often gives distortion instead of light. Hence why I previously stated unless reso runs 40k ws there is no point in saying rag/reso only.

I will say I am glad to see I was wrong about the reso spam not hitting 30k though. Having both Bloodlusty and Saevel to tell/show me they were able to do it on drk made me make yet ANOTHER set of nq argosy just to see the best option of stats, I prefer/get better results from path A with the exception of hands, where I chose path D. I am after +258 str BEFORE absorb-str, but only base of 106 due to being mithra.

On an extra note, I also went out and did straight torc spams, straight Cross Reaper spams, and a blend of ws options on both scythe and great sword. I am getting more RAW dmg out of Ragnarok but Apoc is pretty damn close, which is what I was originally saying. The white dmg on rag is much higher, both ws about the same for me, CR, Reso, and Torc all give me about the same numbers.

Assuming I double darkness or double light I think scythe will pull ahead in the long run on sc dmg just because the properties of the ws are faster to hit the double darkness, but due to the life of apex crabs I wouldn't get an accurate reading.


Heading out there now to re-optimize all my gear and see if I can boost my dps more.

And you missed my point. You said you did that damage with trusts. You didn't. People will watch, not pay attention to the fact that you have a Geo mule, and then start claiming that DRKs are doing 30k Reso with Rag just using trusts. You and I both know that people do that. I have no issue with you using a Geo to push your damage higher, it's the smart thing to do.


is quite different than

No problem, yes my wording is missleading :)

None the less, it is a cool video (with most of the DRK vids on your channel) and good see the potential drk has when played competently.

went out there did a bit of killing
was putting 2.3k with 956 sc dps on apoc with friend on dunna geo 1137 jp, and same trust Bloodlusty had in video. August, Qultada, koru, Joachim.

On Rag same trust and geo friend racked up over 2.8k dps with 1.2k sc assuming I chained the sc. If I just spammed reso my overall dmg dropped due to lack of sc and spamming at 100% tp instead of holding like I normally do.

As we all knew Rag was powerful, we knew that from obvious parse data, but one of the things I was stressing was that apoc is still a very solid ws option.

Keep in mind I only absorb-str, I did not absorb-mnd when I had apoc out, would have been minor dps change but would have been something.


Again, I apologize for making a scene when I didn't have anything to back it up. I would still like to stress Apoc is a very badass weapon and should not be taken lightly.

Working on glowing mine now, then can test all 3 :)

At first I was severely disappointed with AG apoc and thought I wasted a lot of time/gil, after adjusting my gear and learning more about scythe I felt much better about my choice to make it.

It's not one weapon in exclusion of all, there was a question asked and an answer provided. The question was which to AG first. The answer was the one that has the highest practical usage. DRK is a melee, melee's are brought to content and given a ***ton of buffs and expected to smash something dead. Hence the "high buff zerg content", which is CL128~135 type stuff. Now there is a ton of content that isn't included in that group and it's divided into two categories. First is "mage only" stuff where you SC + MB everything dead and you don't bring melee's. Second is lower level stuff that you do with trusts or a handful of friends and maximizing damage output isn't nearly as important.

When analyzing the options and scenarios, upgrading Ragnarok to AG first would give the player a bigger boost where it counts the most. This isn't to say that the player shouldn't make / upgrade an Apoc or Liberator if they want, only that Rag would provide the biggest immediate relative power boost to content that a DRK would be participating in. This is the whole reason I haven't made one of the Legendary Scythes, any situation where it would be preferred would be one that I would be infinitely better as BLU since BLU can get by with far less party support.

。wait shouldnt the question.which weapon upgrade first?, there is nothing to do with ag effect as both weapon give the same bubble. it really came down to preference and what ws contribute more to team ws dmg.

TL;DR: ***is situational.

Isn't it like the #1 thing people are taught about FFXI?

That is your situation, not necessary OPs. OPs job spread may not be the same as yours, and he may not do the same content as you. He may be a drk that duo delve all day and never touch ilv 130+.

Why not just list the situation thats ideal to use those weapons and let OP decide, instead of one single answer: "Ragnarok because that's what I do on drk".

Lol

"it's weaker for sure but not weak....."

Cognitive Dissonance at it's best.

Fights are over with in 60s and there are usually 2 melee's firing off as many powerful WS's as possible in as short a time as possible. All Mythics suffer from the same 3000TP start requirement, which is frequently ignored and hand waived off when comparing to non-Mythics. In fast paced short fights, which are every fight involving melees now, Mythics never have enough time for the AM3 to pull damage out of the hole they start in. And if for some reason you want to solo SC then you have.

Resolution -> Torcleaver -> Scourge -> Resolution -> Torcleaver

Both Resolution and Torcleaver are stronger then anything Scythe has, only Scourge is weaker and used as a fusion linker with Resolution closing the bigger light SC.

What Scythe is really good at is making long Dark SC's, which some things you want for. This also enables DRK to Magic Burst a NV DS Drain III for 9999HP that lasts 3min and can be exploited. Apoc itself is useful for killing weaker stuff without any real support.

Even with a Mythics 30% damage boost, Insurgency is still weaker then a Weapon Skill you get with merits. That's the very definition of a weak weaponskill.